MA S TER 

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AUTHOR: 


PHILLIPS,  JOHN  HERBERT 


TITLE: 


PRAGMATISM 


PLACE: 


[BIRMINGHAM] 


DA  TE : 


[  1 909] 


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Phillinc,  Joim  lierbej-t,   1853-1921. 

PraL:i;ilir>a,  by  J.  I!.  Phillips...  ^a  paper  read 
bcforo  the  'luid  pro  'juo  club.  Birmin^lieuii,  Ala., 
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PRAGMATISM 


By  J.  H.  PHILLIPS, 
Birmingham,  Ala. 


PRAGMATISM 


*By  J.  H.  PhiIvUps,  Birmingham,  Ai.a. 


City  Paper  Company 

Printers,  Birmingham,  Alabama 

1909 


Z."* 


In  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  for  January,  1878,  Mr. 
Charles  Pierce,  an  eminent  American  mathematician,  pub- 
lished an  article  entitled,  "How  to  Make  Our  Ideas  Clear." 
Mr.  Pierce  emphasized  the  thought  that  "our  beliefs  are  really 
rules  for  action,"  and  that  to  determine  the  meaning  of  an 
idea,  we  need  only  to  discover  the  action  or  the  conduct  that 
idea  is  fitted  to  produce.  "The  whole  function  of  thinking," 
he  said,  "is  the  production  of  habits,  and  the  true  measure  of 
any  thought  is  its  influence  upon  practical  life ;  for  us,  conduct 
is  its  sole  significance.  However  subtle  our  thought  distinc- 
tions may  be,  none  of  them  is  so  fine  that  it  cannot  be  ex- 
pressed in  a  possible  difference  of  practice.  To  attain  per- 
fect clearness  in  our  thoughts  of  an  object,  then,  we  need  only 
to  consider  what  conceivable  effects  of  a  practical  kind  the  ob- 
ject may  involve — what  sensations  we  are  to  expect  from  it 
and  what  reactions  we  must  prepare.  Our  conception  of 
these  effects,  whether  immediate  or  remote,  is,  then,  for  us, 
the  whole  of  our  conception  of  the  object,  so  far  as  that  con- 
ception has  positive  significance  at  all." 

To  the  principle  thus  formulated,  Mr.  Pierce  gave  the 
name  Pragmatism.  The  name  lay  unnoticed  for  twenty  years, 
until  in  1^8,  Professor  James,  in  an  address  before  the  Phil- 
osophical Union  of  the  University  of  California,  revived  it 
and  made  a  special  application  of  the  principle  to  religion. 
Professor  John  Dewey,  formerly  of  Chicago,  but  now  of  Co- 
lumbia, in  his  "Studies  in  Logical  Theory,"  made  application 
of  the  principle  to  the  province  of  logic  under  the  name  of 
Intsrumentalism,  and  Professor  Schiller  of  Oxford  later  ap- 
plied the  same  principle  to  pure  metaphysics  under  the  title 
of  Humanism.  Professor  James*  more  recent  work  entitled 
Pragmatism,  is  a  volume  of  lectures  first  delivered  before  the 
Lowell  Institute  in  1906,  and  contains  the  author's  most  com- 
plete exposition  of  the  subject.  Since  the  publication  of  this 
work,  numerous  magazine  articles  have  appeared  and  the  lit- 
erature of  the  subject  is  rapidly  increasing.  No  movement 
has  created  such  a  stir  in  the  philosophic  world  since  the  days 
of  Emerson's  Transcendentalism,  and  while,  to  the  average 


•A  paper  read  before  the  Quid  Pro  Quo  Club, 


\ 


reader,  the  whole  movement  thus  far  consists  in  little  more 
than  the  name,  the  prediction  is  currently  made  that  the  move- 
ment has  come  to  stay  and  that  it  is  destined  to  revolutionize 
the  world's  philosophic  thought. 

The  word  Pragmatism  is  derived  from  the  Greek  word 
pragma,  meaning  action, — the  word  from  which  we  get  our 
words  practice  and  practical.  James  modestly  calls  it  '*A  new 
name  for  some  old  ways  of  thinking."  This  describes  it  fair- 
ly well,  for  whatever  Pragmatism  may  mean  in  philosophy,  it 
may  be  described  as  a  collective  name  for  certain  tendencies 
in  many  different  fields  of  thought;  it  has  furnished  a  unify- 
ing point  in  which  the  dominant  modes  of  thought  in  many 
diverse  fields  converge.  As  one  reviewer  remarks,  "Like  the 
Frenchman,  who,  when  he  took  his  first  lesson  in  Rhetoric,  was 
surprised  to  find  that  he  had  been  talking  prose  all  his  life 
without  knowing  it,  so  mathematicians,  scientists,  logicians, 
theologians  and  metaphysicians,  and  even  those  who  have 
never  striven  to  advance  beyond  the  level  of  plain  common 
sense,  discover  at  last  that  they  have  been  pragmatists  all  their 
lives,  and  did  not  know  it." 

Pragmatism  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  new  philosophy,  nor 
does  it  propose  to  teach  any  new  truth  in  science,  philosophy 
or  theology.  All  that  is  claimed  for  it  is  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  method  of  testing  or  validating  truth;  it  professes  to  teach 
how  truth  may  be  recognized,  but  not  what  truth  is.  As  one 
critic  puts  it  very  briefly,  ''Pragmatism  insists  on  the  correla- 
tion of  philosophy  to  real  life."  Instead  of  turning  backward 
for  inspiration  and  deriving  authority  from  the  abstract,  the 
absolute  and  the  eternal,  it  looks  forward  and  demands  that 
every  claimant  for  our  recognition  and  belief  shall  be  tested  by 
its  practical  consequences.  ''Grant  an  idea  or  belief  to  be  true," 
says  James,  "what  concrete  difference  will  its  being  tnie  make 
in  anyone's  actual  life?  What  is  truth's  cash  value  in  experi- 
mental terms?"  "True  ideas  are  those  that  we  can  assimilate, 
validate,  corroborate  and  verify.  False  ideas  are  those  that  we 
cannot."  Pragmatism  thus  apparently  stands  for  no  special  set 
of  truths  or  results,  but  is  simply  an  attitude — "the  attitude  of 
looking  away  from  certain  assumed  principles,  first  things, 
categories  and  abstractions  and  of  looking  forward  towards 
last  things,  fruits,  consequences,  facts." 

To  those  who  have  studied  Professor  James'  system  of 
Psychology,  his  pragmatic  method  in  philosophy  will  appear  as 
a  natural  development  and  a  logical  consequence  of  certain 
psychological  tenets  with  which  his  name  has  become  identi- 
fied. In  his  psychology,  James  stands  forth  pre-eminently  as 
the  champion  of  the  Ideo-motor  theory, — a  theory  that  is  in 
itself  pragmatic  and  constitutes  a  fitting  foundation  for  the 
philosophy  of  pragmatism.  The  essence  of  this  theory  is  the 
contention  that  all  thoughts  and  ideas  have  a  motor  tendency, 
and  that  it  is  the  inherent  quality  of  thought  to  strive  for  con- 


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Crete  expression.  Every  thought,  every  idea,  and  even  con- 
sciousness itself,  involves  movement,  and  seeks  incarnation  in 
the  concrete  world  of  fact  and  activity.  The  world  as  we  find 
it  is  therefore  nothing  but  thought  reacting  upon  matter. 

,  Closely  associated  with  the  Ideo-motor  theory  of  the  in- 
tellect, is  James*  famous  theory  of  the  emotions  and  feelings, 
commonly  known  as  the  James-Lange  Theory.    Although  not 
so  universally  accepted,  it  is  equally  striking  in  its  pragmatic 
nature.     Professor  James  contends  that  our  feelings,  such  as 
anger,  fear,  love,  hate,  joy,  grief,  shame,  pride  and  their  varie- 
ties should  not  be  regarded  as  absolutely  individual  things. 
"So  long  as  they  are  set  down  as  so  many  eternal  and  sacred 
•  psychic  entities,  like  the  old  immutable  species  in  natural  his- 
tory, so  long  all  that  can  be  done  with  them  is  reverently  to 
catalogue  their  separate  characters,  points  and  effects."     But 
just  as  we  now  regard  species  as  the  products  of  heredity  and 
variation,  so  must  we  regard  the  emotions  as  the  products  of 
more  general  causes.    Our  feelings  are  not  the  cause,  but  the 
result  of  bodily  changes.     Perception  of  the  exciting  fact, — 
the  thought  or  the  idea  involves  movement  only,  and  in  itself, 
is  emotionally  colorless.    But  this  perception  is  the  immediate 
producer  of  certain  bodily  changes,  and  these  bodily  changes 
in  turn  cause  the  appropriate  emotion.     In  other  words,  our 
feelings,  instead  of  being  the  causes  of  our  instinctive  reac- 
tions, are  effects  produced  by  bodily  disturbances  and  physical 
movements.    Primitive  man  according  to  James,  did  not  fight 
because  he  was  angry,  but  became  angry  because  he  fought; 
he  did  not  run  away  because  he  was  afraid,  but  was  afraid 
because  he  ran  away.    Under  the  conditions  of  primitive  life, 
the  emotions  of  anger  and  fear  are  thus  superinduced  by  bod- 
ily changes  essential  to  the  struggle  for  existence.     This  re- 
versal of  the  theory  of  the  emotions  by  the  application  of  the 
principle  of  evolution  has  made  James  one  of  the  most  fa- 
mous psychologists  of  modern  times. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  discuss  James*  psychological  ten- 
ets further  than  to  show  their  importance  as  planks  in  the 
platform  of  Pragmatism.  The  projection  into  the  sphere  of 
philosophy  of  these  two  contentions — namely,  that  it  is  the  in- 
herent nature  of  thought  to  be  alive  and  to  move,  and  that 
feeling  in  all  its  forms  is  the  physiological  effect  of  movement, 
and  the  result  of  our  instinctive  reactions  upon  the  outer 
world,  is  essentially  the  contribution  of  Professor  James.  This 
is  the  practical  psychological  basis  of  the  pragmatic  method 
which  proposes  to  test  all  thought  by  its  practical  conse- 
quences, and  to  evaluate  truth  according  to  its  power  to  affect 
human  relations  and  human  activities.  While  Pragmatism 
professes  to  be  a  method  only,  and  to  stand  for  no  particu- 
lar results  in  philosophy  or  religion,  it  is  evident  from  its  very 
nature  that  it  assumes  an  attitude  which  completely  shuts  out 
certain  metaphysical  assumptions  of  the  extreme  intellectual- 


istic  type.  It  will  not  tolerate  what  James  calls  the  solution  of 
the  world  enigma  by  the  use  of  certain  magical  words.  The 
rationalistic  type  of  philosopher  names  the  principle  of  the 
Universe,  God,  Matter,  Reason,  the  Absolute  Energy,  and  then 
rests  as  if  he  possessed  the  universe  itself.  When  you  accept 
a  magical  word  or  an  assumed  theory  as  an  explanation  of  the 
Universe,  you  are  at  rest;  you  have  reached  the  end  of  your 
metaphysical  quest.  "But,"  says  James,  "if  you  follow  the 
pragmatic  method,  you  cannot  look  on  any  such  word  or  the- 
ory as  closing  your  quest.  You  must  bring  out  of  each  its 
practical  cash  value,  set  it  at  work  within  the  stream  of  your 
experience."  Pragmatism  thus  assumes  the  empiricist  attitude 
in  philosophy,  and  aligns  itself  with  what  James  describes  as 
the  "toughminded"  in  temperament,  or  those  who  rely  upon 
facts,  and  against  the  ''tender-minded'*  or  the  rationalistic 
type  of  mind.  Pragmatism  is  primarily  a  protest  against  Pla- 
tonic Idealism  and  Hegelian  absolutism.  James  draws  this  broad 
temperamental  line  which  divides  philosophers  into  two  oppos- 
ing camps,  and,  while  he  claims  to  apply  the  pragmatic  test  im- 
partially to  the  two  kinds  of  philosophy,  he  frankly  admits  at 
the  outset  that  from  its  very  nature  it  leans  toward  the  tough- 
minded  empiricist  temperament  which  relies  upon  the  facts 
of  sense  experience.  The  difference  between  pragmatism  and 
rationalism  is  tersely  expressed  by  James  in  this  language: 
"For  rationalism,  reality  is  ready  made,  and  complete  from  all 
eternity,  while  for  pragmatism,  it  is  still  in  the  making  and 
awaits  part  of  its  complexion  from  the  future." 

The  advocates  of  the  theory  of  pragmatism  use  the  term  in 
several  different  senses.  James  uses  the  word  in  the  first  place 
as  the  name  of  a  method  of  determining  the  meaning  of  pro- 
positions. A  proposition  is  said  to  have  a  definite  meaning 
only  under  certain  conditions,  and  when  it  fails  to  conform  to 
these  requirements,  pragmatism  steps  in  and  puts  it  out  of 
court.  A  large  class  of  propositions  may  thus  be  eliminated 
from  consideration.  To  have  any  import  to  us,  any  proposi- 
tion that  may  be  framed  by  the  human  mind  must  possess 
the  following  characteristics: 

1.  It  must  have  some  reference  to  the  future. 

2.  It  must  involve  some  specific  purpose;  it  is  volitional 
and  teleological. 

3.  It  must  be  practical, — that  is,  it  must  be  capable  of 
verification  in  concrete  human  experience. 

Pragmatism,  standing  upon  the  psychological  theory  al- 
ready stated,  insists  that  the  human  mind  is  characteristically 
active  and  purposive,  and  all  our  judgments  to  have  any  mean- 
ing whatever  for  us,  must  be  capable  of  redescending  into  the 
stream  of  our  experience.  We  stand  with  our  faces  toward  the 
future,  and  the  significance  of  the  present  moment  lies  in 
its  transitive  character.  Our  faculty  of  judgment,  of  neces- 
sity, shares  in  this  forward  looking  nature  of  all  conscious 


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life.  To  judge  is  not  to  mirror  things  as  they  are  merely,  but 
to  forecast  things  as  they  will  be,  and  to  adjust  ourselves  so 
that  we  may  properly  deal  with  these  future  facts.  Any  judg- 
ment, then,  says  the  pragmatist,  which  has  no  reference  to 
the  future,  and  which  cannot  be  returned  to  the  stream  of 
human  experience  for  verification,  has  no  meaning  at  all. 
The  meaning  of  any  proposition  is  precisely  stated  when  you 
have  made  clear  the  specific  concrete  future  experience  im- 
plied in  it. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  fact.  Professor  James  applies  the 
test  of  pragmatism  to  the  contest  between  materialism  and 
theism.    The  materialist  contends  that  the  world  is  a  work  of 
matter  only,  while  the  theist  insists  upon  a  divine  spirit  as 
its  author.    So  far  as  the  past  of  the  world  goes,  it  makes  no 
difference  which  is  true.     But  imagine  the  world  at  an  end, 
with  all  its  contents  irrevocably  given  and  the  idea  of  a  future 
entirely  cut  off.     Then,  let  a  theist  and  a  materialist  apply 
their  rival  explanations  of  its  history  with  equal  success;  the 
theist  shows  how  God  made  it,  and  the  materialist  shows  how 
it  all  resulted  from  blind  physical  forces.    Hov/  can  the  prag- 
matist apply  his  test?    "Concepts  for  him  are  things  to  come 
back  into  experience  with,  but  by  the  terms  of  the  hypothesis 
there  is  to  be  no  more  experience.    Both  theories  have  shown 
their  consequences  to  be  identical— their  results  are  all  cashed 
in.     In  spite  of  their  different  names,  the  two  theories  mean 
exactly  the  same  thing  and  the  dispute  is  purely  a  verbal  con- 
test.    Matter  and  God  in  that  event  mean  the  same  thing — 
namely,  the  power  that  could  make  this  completed  world.    As 
a  principle  of  the  universe,  God  is  no  better  than  matter, 
unless  he  promises  more  that  is  of  actual  experiential  value. 
The  proposition  under  these  imposed  conditions  must  be  dis- 
missed by  pragmatism  as  meaningless.    If,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  grant  that  the  world  is  uncompleted,  that  it  has  a  future, 
the  alternative  of  theism  or  materialism  becomes  intensely  prac- 
tical.    Mr.  Spencer,  to  avoid  clerical  implications  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  idea  of  grossness  on  the  other,  calls  the  primal 
mystery  the  "unknowable,"  instead  of  saying  either  God  or 
matter.    If  philosophy  were  simply  retrospective,  he  would  be 
an  excellent  pragmatist;  but  philosophy  is  also  prospective, 
and  after  finding  what  the  world  has  done,  still  asks,  "What 
does  the   world  promise?"     Theism   and  materiahsm   taken 
retrospectively  are  indifferent,  but  taken  prospectively  point 
to  wholly  different  outlooks  of  experience.     Materialism  by 
its  mechanical  explanations  promises  no  continuance,  but  leads 
to  dismal  dissolution.     It  means  the  denial  that  the  moral 
order  is  eternal  and  cuts  off  hope,  while  theism  affirms  the 
moral  order  of  the  universe  and  returns  into  the  stream  of 
experience  with  the  hope  and  promise  of  a  successful  issue. 
Likewise,  any  definition  that  is   incapable  of  application 
and  verification  within  the  range  of  future  human  experience 


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IS  worthless.  The  school  boy  is  strictly  pragmatic  when  he 
defines  a  knife  as  "something  to  whittle  with/'  and  an  orange 
as  *'a  fruit  you  can  eat." 

But  pragmatism  has  another  meaning  no  less  significant  to 
philosophy  than  the  one  we  have  described.  The  term  is 
used  not  only  to  determine  the  meaning  of  propositions,  but 
also  to  indicate  a  certain  theory  as  to  the  nature  of  truth; 
it  is  a  method  of  determining  comparative  values  and  a  prac- 
tical criterion  of  validity  in  the  realm  of  philosophy.  This 
carries  us  far  into  the  deep  waters  of  logic  and  epistemology, 
and  we  incur  the  danger  of  drifting  or  capsizing.  I  shall 
attempt  a  brief  statement  of  the  theory,  however  ambiguous 
it  may  be.  In  general,  what  entitles  a  proposition  to  be  re- 
garded as  true,  is  its  functional  value  as  an  instrument  which 
leads  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  vital  need,  or  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  some  indispensable  activity.  Or,  quoting  Pro- 
fessor James,  ''a  proposition  is  true  in  so  far  as  it  will  work," 
and  ''ideas  become  true  in  so  far  as  they  help  us  to  get  into 
satisfactory  relations  with  the  rest  of  our  experience." 

Truth  depends  upon  its  consequences.  There  is  no  ab- 
solute truth  existing  immutably  and  a  priori  in  a  superceles- 
tial  world,  and  descending  magically  into  passively  recipient 
souls  as  rationalistic  philosophers  from  Plato  to  Bradley  and 
Royce  have  held.  An  assertion  to  be  true  must  have  meaning ; 
and  in  so  far  as  it  has  meaning,  it  is  functional  and  has  con- 
sequences that  are  practical  and  good.  If  the  consequences 
turn  out  to  be  valuable  for  our  purposes,  the  assertion  estab- 
lishes itself  at  least,  as  provisionally  true.  The  truth  of  an 
assertion  depends  upon  its  application.  Abstract  truths  are 
not  fully  truths  at  all;  or  they  are  truths  out  of  use.  In 
common  life  this  principle  is  understood.  Truth  depends 
upon  context,  upon  who  said  it,  to  whom,  when  and  how  and 
why.  The  abstract  statement  ''two  and  two  make  four"  is 
always  incomplete;  it  waits  for  application.  We  must  know 
what  twos  and  fours  are  meant.  It  would  not  be  true  of 
chairs  and  tables,  joys  and  sorrows  or  of  drops  of  water. 
"Truths  to  become  true  and  to  stay  true,  must  be  used ;"  they 
are  rules  of  action.  A  rule  that  is  not  applied  rules  nothing. 
It  is  true  only  in  so  far  as  it  rules  within  a  definite  sphere  of 
application  marked  out  by  experiment.  All  truth  must  thus 
have  a  human  interest,  and  man  is  entitled  to  presume  that 
he  himself  is  the  measure  of  his  experience.  This  is  what 
Schiller  calls  Humanism,  and  is  differentiated  from  prag- 
matism as  being  broader  and  more  comprehensive.  The  dis- 
covery of  the  principle  Schiller  attributes  to  Protagoras  the 
Sophist,  who,  450  years  before  the  Christian  Era,  proclaimed 
the  dictum  that  "Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things,"  and  de- 
duced the  theory  that  man  is  the  maker  of  truth,  which  is 
the  useful  and  the  good  in  human  life;  that  all  truth  depends 
upon  human  interest;  that  absolute,  immutable  eternal  reality 


H 


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does  not  yet  exist,  but  when  it  does  exist,  it  will  be  that  which 
fulfills  our  every  purpose,  and  which  therefore  we  will  not 
seek  to  change,  but  only  to  maintain.  He  said  to  Socrates 
and  Plato  and  the  other  idealists  of  his  time,  "Your  mistake 
lies  in  supposing  such  a  reality  to  exist  already  as  a  unity  or 
harmony,  and  as  something  we  can  start  from.  The  abso- 
lutely real  can  be  reached  only  through  the  apparently  real 
by  remoulding  it  into  a  perfect  harmony."  "Mere  knowing," 
says  Schiller,  "is  incapable  of  making  or  altering  reality,  mere- 
ly because  it  is  an  intellectual  abstraction,  which  strictly  speak- 
ing does  not  exist."  In  the  pragmatic  conception,  knowing  is  a 
prelude  to  doing.  Mere  knowing  is  a  fragment  of  a  total 
process  which  in  its  unmutilated  integrity  always  ends  in 
action  which  tests  the  truth.  Hence  we  must  not  confine  our- 
selves to  the  intellectual  fraction  of  the  process,  but  consider 
the  completed  process  as  issuing  in  action  and  altering  reality. 
In  his  work  on  logical  theory.  Dr.  Dewey  also  emphasizes  the 
fact  that  all  truth,  all  theory  and  even  thinking  itself  is 
instrumental.  It  is  to  be  regarded  not  as  an  absolute,  eternal 
reality,  but  as  a  temporary  instrument  to  be  remoulded  by 
human  experience  and  to  be  used  as  an  instrument  in  the  at- 
tainment of  ultimate  truth,  and  in  reaching  the  ultimate  real. 

"Our  account  of  truth,"  says  James,  "is  an  account  of 
truths  in  the  plural,  of  processes  of  leading  realized  in  rebus 
and  having  only  this  quality  in  common,  that  they  pay." 
"Truth  for  us  is  simply  a  collective  name  for  verification  pro- 
cesses, just  as  wealth,  health  and  strength  are  names  for  other 
processes  connected  with  life,  and  also  pursued  because  it  pays 
to  pursue  them.  Truth  is  made,  just  as  wealth,  health  and 
strength  are  made,  in  the  course  of  experience." 

The  contrast  between  the  pragmatist  and  the  monistic 
rationalist  with  regard  to  their  views  concerning  the  struc- 
ture of  the  universe,  James  presents  somewhat  dramatically 
as  follows :  "On  the  pragmatist  side  we  have  only  one  edition 
of  the  universe,  unfinished,  growing  in  all  sorts  of  places,  es- 
pecially in  the  places  where  thinking  beings  are  at  work." 
"On  the  rationalist  side  we  have  a  universe  in  many  editions, 
one  real  one,  the  infinite  folio,  or  edition  de  luxe  eternally 
complete;  and  then  the  various  finite  editions,  full  of  false 
readings,  distorted  and  mutilated  each  in  its  own  way." 

The  rationalist  thus  assumes  a  preexisting  and  eternal  uni- 
verse of  truth,  an  immutable  ideal,  unexposed  to  the  acci- 
dents of  experience,  to  which  the  finite  many  are  firmly  an- 
chored. "Behind  our  de  facto  world  there  must  be  a  de  jure 
duplicate  fixed  and  previous,  with  all  that  can  happen  here 
already  there  in  posse.  The  truth  of  human  experience  ac- 
cording to  the  rationalist  is  a  more  or  less  accurate  copy  of 
this  eternal  reality  which  persists  in  calling  upon  us  to  agree 
with  it,  simply  because  its  claim  is  unconditional  and  trans- 
cendent.    To  the  pragmatist,  truth  is  a  process  based  upon 


•       • 


•■• 


the  facts  of  human  experience,  and  "the  true  is  only  the 
expedient  in  the  way  of  our  thinking,  just  as  the  right  is 
only  the  expedient  in  the  way  of  our  behaving.'*  Pragmatism 
thus  reiterates  the  position  of  Greek  Philosophy  by  identifying 
the  true  with  the  good  and  the  useful. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  pragmatist  does  away 
with  prmciples  and  abstract  truths.  The  difference  is  a  mat- 
ter of  outlook  and  emphasis.  "Our  ready-made  ideal  frame- 
work for  all  sorts  of  possible  objects  follows  from  the  very 
structure  of  our  thinking,"  says  James.  "We  can  no  more 
play  fast  and  loose  with  these  abstract  relations  than  we  can 
do  so  with  our  sense  experiences.  They  coerce  us;  we  must 
treat  them  consistently,  whether  or  not  we  like  the  results.'* 
But  to  him  principles,  truths,  beliefs,  are  funded  experience. 
Such  principles  or  truths  may  be  accepted  by  us  as  a  priori, 
but  they  have  not  always  been  so  accepted.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  have  been  derived  from  experience,  and  to  live  at 
all  must  be  capable  of  verification  by  experience.  Truth  lives 
for  the  most  part  on  a  credit  system;  it  passes  so  long  as 
it  goes  unchallenged,  like  a  bank  note;  but  this  means  that 
there  is  a  point  of  verification  somewhere.  The  pragmatist 
believes  in  the  ideal  and  the  absolute,  not  as  an  origin,  but 
as  an  ultimate  to  which  all  finite  processes  point.  He  takes 
the  \yorld's  perfection,  not  as  a  necessary  principle,  but  as  a 
terminus  ad  quern. 

It  now  remains  to  suggest  some  of  the  practical  applica- 
tions of  the  method  of  pragmatism.  The  natural  sciences — 
physics,  chemistry,  geology,  etc.,  are  so  plainly  pragmatic  in 
their  methods  that  any  illustration  would  seem  superfluous. 
Scientific  principles  and  formulas  are  worthless  except  as 
they  are  verified  by  the  tests  of  the  laboratory.  Scientific 
assumptions  and  theories  are  true  only  so  far  as  they  serve 
as  working  hypotheses — or  truths  pro  tempore  and  instru- 
mental. 

In  the  sphere  of  government  and  economics  it  is  unnec- 
essary to  prove  the  contention  of  pragmatism — that  principles 
and  standards  of  value  change  with  the  flux  of  human  ex- 
perience. History  is  a  graveyard  of  dead  principles  that  once 
held  sway  as  eternal  truths  and  absolute  rights.  The  divine 
right  of  kings,  and  human  slavery,  are  no  longer  held  as 
divinely  ordained  and  immutable  principles.  They  have 
yielded  to  new  truths  evolved  by  the  process  of  human  ex- 
perience. Goodness,  honesty  and  integrity  are  valued  not  as 
abstract  virtues,  but  because  they  work;  efficiency  is  the  key- 
note of  the  age. 

The  pragmatic  tendencies  of  modern  education  require 
no  illustration.  All  education  today  to  be  of  worth  must  be 
of  service.  Knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  truth  for  truth's 
sake,  and  art  for  art's  sake  are  decadent  phrases  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  schools. 


'• 


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..  ^ 


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In  the  field  of  logic.  Professor  Dewey  by  his  instrumental 
view  of  truth  threatens  the  very  foundation  of  the  traditional 
method.  The  "correspondence-with-reality"  view  of  truth, 
"together  with  the  realisms  and  idealisms  in  which  it  is  in- 
volved have  been  so  seriously  shaken  that  the  logician  is 
already  casting  about  for  a  new  theory  of  logic." 

The   province   of   metaphysics   contains    important   prob- 
lems to  some  of  which  James  applies  the  method  of  pragma- 
tism and  which  Schiller  in  his  work  on  Humanism  treats  criti- 
cally and  effectively.    Among  these  are  the  problems  of  Sub- 
stance, Determinism  and  Freewill,  the  problem  of  Design,  and 
the  problem  of  the  One  and  the  Many.   To  treat  these  prob- 
lems of  metaphysics  in  the  light  of  pragmatism  would  carry 
us  so  far  afield  and  into  such  mists  and  fogs  that  I  deem  the 
effort  too  perilous  for  me  at  the  present.    These  problems  are 
important,  however,  because  they  •  underlie  the  world's  theol- 
ogy and  its  philosophy.    Let  me  briefly  present  some  of  James' 
conclusions:    The  old  scholastic  notion  of  Substance  has  but 
one  pragmatic  application,  and  that  is  found  in  the  doctrine 
of  transubstantiation  as  applied  to  the  Eucharist.     Berkeley's 
treatment  of  material  substance  is  strictly  pragmatic  when  he 
makes  the  meaning  and  significance  of  matter  to  consist  solely 
of  our  sensations  of  color,  form,  hardness  and  the  like.    The 
notion  of  spiritual  substance  was  likewise  treated  pragmati- 
cally by  Locke  and  Hume  when  they  reduced  the  problem 
of  personal  identity  to  its  practical  value  in  terms  of  exper- 
ience.    The  soul  is  good  or  true  for  just  so  much  as  is  re- 
vealed by  consciousness  and  no  more.     The  problem  of  sub- 
stance is  at  the  basis  of  any  philosophical  view  of  the  world 
and  leads  to  the  contention  between  the  materialistic  and  the- 
istic  explanations. 

Pragmatism  considers  each  impartially  and  with  its  eyes 
characteristically  on  the  future  concludes:  "Spiritualistic 
faith  in  all  its  forms  deals  with  a  world  of  promise,  while 
materialism's  sun  sets  in  a  sea  of  disappointment."  The  prin- 
ciple of  design  as  a  rationalistic  proof  of  the  existence  of  God 
is  worthless  for  pragmatism,  except  as  our  faith  concretes 
it  into  something  theistic— a  term  of  promise.  "We  can  study 
our  God,"  says  the  pragmatist,  "only  by  studying  his  crea- 
tion. But  we  can  enjoy  our  God,  if  we  have  one,  in  advance 
of  all  that  labor."  Upon  this  point  James  makes  a  significant 
remark:  "I  myself  believe  that  the  evidence  for  God  lies 
primarily  in  inner  personal  experiences." 

Pragmatism  naturally  welcomes  indeterminism  and  the 
freedom  of  the  will  as  a  melioristic  doctrine — ^because  "it  holds 
up  improvement  as  at  least  possible,  whereas  determinism  as- 
sures us  that  our  whole  notion  of  possibility  is  born  of  human 
ignorance  and  that  necessity  and  impossibility  between  them 
rule  the  destinies  of  the  world."  With  regard  to  the  prob- 
lem of  Monism  and  Pluralism,  pragmatism  admits  the  total- 

11 


ity  or  coherence  of  the  universe,  but  cannot  accept  any  unity 
in  advance  of  empirical  ascertainment.  "Under  the  present 
conditions  of  human  experience,  the  hypothesis  of  a  world 
imperfectly  unified,  and  possibly  always  to  remain  so,  must 
be  entertained  as  the  most  acceptable  working  hypothesis." 

The  application  to  theology  and  religion  involves  a  more 
critical  discussion  of  its  underlying  metaphysical  problem^; 
than  I  can  give  here.  Speaking  broadly,  pragmatism  recog- 
nizes three  philosophical  attitudes  with  regard  to  the  notion 
of  the  world's  possibilities,—a  notion  that  underlies  the  whole 
question  of  religion.  Rationalism  intellectually  falls  back 
upon  the  absolute  principle  of  unity  as  the  ground  of  no^si- 
bihty  for  the  multitude  of  existing  facts,  and  emotionally  re- 
gards that  unity  as  a  guarantee  that  all  will  come  out  right 
in  the  end.  The  rationalist  lies  back  upon  the  principle  ol 
absolute  perfection  as  a  guarantee  of  security  and  regards  the 
world's  salvation  as  inevitable.  This  is  the  attitude  o-'  philo- 
sophic optimism,  and  leads  to  quietism  or  indifferentism.  You 
simply  look  back  or  lie  back  upon  the  absolute,  confident  that 
you  are  safe  and  that  the  world  is  safe.  "Pragmatism,"  says 
James,  ^;must  respect  this  attitude,  for  it  has  massive  historic 
vindication. 

The  second  attitude  is  that  of  philosophic  pessim'sm,  as 
represented  by  Schopenhauer  and  others  who  are  so  unhappy 
and  miserable  as  to  believe  the  world's  salvation  impossible. 
Midway  between  these  stands  the  doctrine  of  meliorism* 
which  treats  the  salvation  of  the  world  neither  hs  a  foregone 
conclusion  nor  as  an  impossibility.  To  this  view  pragmatism 
inclines,  and  the  doctrine  of  meliorism  is  then  contrasted  with 
that  of  optimism.  The  former  makes  man  an  active  agent— 
a  co-worker  with  God  in  securing  ultimate  results  Life  is 
a  risk  and  a  real  adventure.  The  latter  eliminates  all  risk 
and  provides  in  advance  a  scheme  of  insurance  ugainst  indi- 
vidual or  cosmic  disaster.  This  is  essentiallv  the  attitude  of 
the  Buddhist,  who  is  afraid  of  more  experience  and  seeks 
Nirvana  as  an  escape  from  the  adventures  of  this  world  of 
sense. 

And  yet,  the  pragmatist  concedes  the  value  of  this  attitude 
to  the  sick  soul  and  to  the  discouraged  in  life.  When  our  own 
life  breaks  down,  it  is  a  comfort  to  fall  back  ujx^n  the  "Ever- 
lasting Arms,"— to  take  the  prodigal  son  attitude,  to  give  up 
all— fall  on  our  father's  neck  and  be  absorbed  into  the  abso- 
lute life  as  a  drop  of  water  melts  into  the  nver  or  the  sea. 
Professor  James  admits  the  possibility  of  pragmatically  recon- 
ciling the  two  attitudes,  but,  speaking  for  himself,  says,  "I 
find  myself  willing  to  take  the  universe  to  be  really  danger- 
ous and  adventurous,  without  therefore  backing  out  and  cry- ' 
ing  *no  play.'  I  am  willing  to  think  that  the  prodigal  son  at- 
titude, open  to  us  as  it  is  in  many  vicissitudes,  is  noi  the  right 
and  final  attitude  towards  the  whole  of  Hfe.   .    .    .    I  can  believe 


-^M- 


• » 


w    • 


t  • 


i'' 


in  the  ideal  as  an  ultimate,  not  as  an  origin,  and  as  a.i  extract 
not  the  whole."  The  genuine  pragmatist,  he  insists,  is  "willing 
to  live  on  a  scheme  of  uncertified  possibilities  which  he  trusts ; 
willing  to  pay  with  his  own  person,  if  needs  be,  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  ideals  which  he  frames. 

This  tendency  towards  a  more  active,  robust  and  aggres- 
sive religious  life,  and  away  from  the  inactive,  contemplative, 
supine  and  supplicative  attitude,  described  by  Professor  James, 
is  today  evidenced  in  many  ways  that  will  readily  occur  to  us. 
The  prayer  meeting  is  no  longer  functional  in  the  life  of  the 
church  as  it  was  in  former  years;  the  experience  meeting 
of  fifty  years  ago  is  a  vanishing  institution.  Church  hymn- 
ology  as  an  expression  of  religious  sentiment  and  experience 
has  undergone  a  radical  change  in  twenty-five  years.  Many 
of  the  old  popular  hymns  have  been  abandoned  and  others 
though  retained  in  the  hymn  books  are  seldom  used.  I  re- 
member as  a  boy  the  ecstasy  of  satisfaction  with  which  the 
old  people  sang: 

"We  are  but  children  under  age, 
Awaiting  still  our  heritage; 
The  promise  of  our  Father's  will 
Our  hearts'  desire  must  yet  fulfill." 

We  no  longer  sympathize  with  the  supine  and  inactive 
attitude  of  heirs,  waiting  for  an  estate;  our  heritage,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  here  and  now,  and  religious  duty  calls  upon  us 
to  occupy  it  and  to  improve  it.  Religion  today  is  more  prag- 
matic, because  it  recognizes  the  real  core  of  the  matter  to 
be  practical  life  and  conduct  in  the  present  tense,  not  merely 
a  sigh  for  the  time — 

"When  I  can  read  my  title  clear 
To  mansions  in  the  skies." 

In  certain  moods  of  religious  experience,  as  noted  by 
Professor  James,  there  may  be  pragmatic  value  in  the  senti- 
ment : 

"I'm  a  pilgrim  and  Tm  a  stranger, 
I  can  tarry,  I  can  tarry,  but  a  night." 

It  is  difficult,  however,  to  see  what  religious  mood,  unless 
it  be  the  abandonment  of  all  life,  can  justify  the  rhapsody :— - 

"Nothing  either  great  or  small, 
Remains  for  me  to  do ; 
Jesus  died  and  paid  it  all, 
Yes,  all  the  debt  I  owe." 

And  another  hymn  of  my  boyhood  days  always  impressed 

13 


me  as  foreign  to  human  experience,  religious  or  otherwise : 

"I  want  to  be  an  angel, 

And  with  the  angels  stand, 
A  crown  upon  my  forehead, 
A  harp  within  my  hand." 

Old  Martin  Luther,  whatever  his  metaphysical  presuppo- 
sitions, in  his  immortal  hymn,  "Ein  Feste  Berg  ist  unser  Gott," 
was  pragmatist  enough  to  leave  a  loop  hole  for  experience  and 
human  agency  in  the  final  triumph  of  truth,  when  he  sang : 

"And  though  this  world  with  devils  filled, 

Should  threaten  to  undo  us, 
We  will  not  fear,  for  God  hath  willed 
His  truth  to  triumph  through  us." 

It  will  be  interesting  to  note  the  position  of  pragmatism 
with  regard  to  Reason  and  Faith  as  factors  in  religion.    Rea- 
son is  not  a  faculty,  but  stands  for  a  group  of  habits  useful  in 
carrying  on  the  business  of  life.     Among  these  habits  may 
be  mentioned  the  power  of  inhibiting  our  instinctive  reactions 
until  we  break  up  the  complex   by   reflection   and   analysis. 
This  analysis  involves  thinking  which  implies  the  use  of  con- 
cepts;  these  concepts   ultimately   depend   upon   certain   prin- 
ciples that     have  long  been  regarded  as  fundamental  truths 
or  axioms,  but  which  pragmatism  regards  as  mere  postulates. 
A  postulate  is  not  a  self-evident,  necessary  truth.     It  is  an 
assumption  whose  validity  is  uncertain  until  tested  by  exper- 
iment.   It  is  established  ex  post  facto  by  its  practical  success. 
In  so  far  as  reasoning  rests  on  postulates,  our  acceptance 
implies  faith,  or  a  belief  in  a  verification  yet  to  come.     Back 
of   reason   therefore,   in   science   as   well   as   in   religion,   we 
find  Faith.    All  the  truths  of  science  presuppose  faith.    Faith 
is  defined  as  a  "mental  attitude,  which,  for  purposes  of  ac- 
tion, is  willing  to  take  upon  trust  valuable  and  desirable  be- 
liefs, before  they  have  been   proved   true,   but   in   the  hope 
that  this  attitude,  may  promote  their  verification."    By  this 
definition,   Faith   is    (i)    an   attitude   of   will— of   the   whole 
personality,  not  of  the  abstract  intellect.     (2)  It  is  concerned 
with  values  and  eliminates   the  worthless  and  unimportant. 
(3)  It  involves  risks  and  real  dangers,  and  is  therefore  to 
be  taken  seriously.     (4)  It  involves  verification  by  its  prac- 
tical  working  as   an   essential   element.     In   every   instance 
faith  must  justify  itself  by  works.  ' 

Pragmatism  thus  establishes  the  mutual  relations  of  Rea- 
son and  Faith  both  in  science  and  religion.  It  gives  a  practi- 
cal test  by  which  spurious  faith  may  be  eliminated,  but  ob- 
jects to  the  abstract  intellectual  process  that  depersonalizes 
truth  and  dehumanizes  faith.     B^h  are  distinctly  human,— 


0  •  I  «< 


^^ 


•   i 


f 


^•^^ 


\. 


^. 


both  are  personal.  Covering  the  vast  diversity  of  faiths  in 
the  world,  shall  we  seek  to  eliminate  all  competitors  but  one? 
Here  the  pragmatist  asks  a  few  suggestive  questions: 
(i)  The  processes  of  reason  and  faith  are  still  in  flux  and  in- 
complete; what  right  have  we  to  expect  final  results  from  an 
incomplete  process?  (2)  What  right  have  we  to  assume 
that  even  ultimate  truth  must  be  one  and  the  same  for  all? 
(3)  Should  we  be  alarmed  because  the  growth  of  truth  pro- 
ceeds with  such  exuberance  along  divergent  lines  in  religion; 
do  we  not  find  the  same  diversity  of  interpretation  in  science, 
philosophy  and  economics?  (4)  May  not  the  divergent  be- 
liefs and  plurality  of  opinions  entertained  constitute  the  data 
necessary  to  an  adequate  theory  of  knowledge  and  of  religion  ? 

Pragmatism  touches  the  divergent  concrete  religious  faiths 
and  beliefs  of  mankind  sympathetically,  and  respects  the  re- 
ligious endowment  of  human  nature  whatever  its  evidences 
or  modes  of  expression  may  be.  All  religions  work  prag- 
matically to  some  extent,  in  spite  of  their  theoretical  difficulties, 
but  these  theoretical  and  theological  difficulties  are  unim- 
portant, because  they  are  either  non- functional  or  pragmat- 
ically equivalents.  The  really  functional  parts  of  all  relig- 
ions are  practically  identical.  Religion  will  be  benefited  and 
strengthened  therefore  by  getting  rid  of  these  non- functional 
accretions  and  appendages,  inherited  from  former  ages.  It 
should  unburden  itself  of  those  mystical  metaphysical  specula- 
tions which  have  always  been  too  obscure  to  be  truly  functional 
in  life  and  conduct. 

To  really  promote  the  cause  of  religion,  we  must  restore 
the  human  predicate  to  our  completed  judgments;  we  must 
make  our  thought  processes  complete,  by  restoring  the  element 
of  action ;  we  must  renounce  that  form  of  faith  which  stands 
for  intellectual  indolence  and  unwillingness  to  think  and 
through  our  personal  volition  inculcate  that  robuster  form, 
which  by  a  continual  quest  for  verification,  seeks  to  complete 
and  justify  itself  by  works. 

For  the  philosophy  of  pragmatism.  Religion  as  well  as 
Science  must  have  her  postulates,  upon  which  all  reasoning 
must  be  based.  Behind  her  reasoning  there  must  be  faith. 
Back  of  her  postulates  there  must  be  "the  Will  to  Believe." 
She  is  willing  to  accept  as  her  working  postulates  such  con- 
cepts as  God  and  Immortality,  Freedom  of  the  Will  and  Prayer, 
Confession  and  Sacrament ;  but  each  in  turn  is  called  upon 
to  give  an  adequate  account  of  itself  in  our  human  experience, 
and  to  justify  itself  by  proving  its  validity.  There  are  no 
narrow  boundaries  set  for  the  province  of  religious  faith, 
provided  it  must  always  remain  within  the  range  of  human 
experience.  But  the  pragmatist  unequivocally  favors  the  re- 
ligious attitude  of  healthy-mindedness,  rather  than  that  of  the 
mentally  diseased.  While  all  faith  must  be  validated  by  its 
results  in  human  experience,  Professor  James  would  not  place 

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any  arbitrary  limitations  even  upon  the  realm  of  experience. 
He  says:     "I  firmly  disbelieve,  myself,  that  our  human  ex- 
perience  IS   the   highest    form    of   experience   extant   in   the 
universe.     I  believe  rather  that  we  stand  in  much  the  same 
relation  to  the  whole  of  the  universe,  as  our  canine  and  fe- 
hne  pets  do  to  the  whole  of  human  life.     But  just  as  many 
of  the  dog's  and  cat's  ideals  coincide  with  our  ideals,  and  the 
dogs  and  cats  have  daily  living  proof  of  the  fact.     So  we 
may  well  believe,  on  the  proofs  that  religious  experience  af- 
fords, that  higher  powers  exist  and  are  at  work  to  save  the 
world,  on  ideal  lines,  similar  to  our  own."     The  expression 
of  this  "overbelief,''  as  Professor  James  calls  it,  is  interest- 
ing because   it  explains   his   attitude   towards   Psychical    Re- 
search, and  toward  such  supernatural  beliefs  as  spiritualism. 
Christian  science  and  other  divergent  faiths— an  attitude  that 
has  subjected  him  to  severe  criticism."     If  such  overbeliefs 
are  essential  to  the  individual's  religion,  he  thinks  we  should 
treat  them  with  tenderness  and  tolerance  so  long  as  they  are 
not  intolerant  themselves.     But  more  than  this,  his  idea  of 
the  subconscious  and  the  supraconscious,  makes  possible  for 
him  the  inflow  into  our  conscious  life,  of  energy  and  power 
from  other  spheres  of  consciousness,    with    which    we    may 
come  in  contact  and  communion  through  the  "faith  state  and 
the  prayer  state." 

This  paper  is  submitted  as  an  imperfect  statement,  with- 
out criticism,  of  a  theory  that  is  as  yet  but  imperfectly  de- 
veloped, but  which  in  my  judgment  is  destined  to  influence 
our  civilization  more  profoundly  than  any  movement  of  the 
past  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  more  aggressive  attitude 
towards  life's  problems,  whether  educational  or  social,  eco- 
nomic or  religious. 


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